Podcast appearances and mentions of ian sansom

The Book Club has taken a short summer break and will return in September. Until then, and ahead of the 85th anniversary of the start of World War Two, here's an episode from the archives with the author Ian Sansom.  Recorded ahead of the 80th anniversary in 2019, Sam Leith talks to Ian about September 1, 1939, the W.H. Auden poem that marked the beginning of the war. Ian's book is a 'biography' of the poem; they discuss how it showcases all that is best and worst in Auden's work, how Auden first rewrote and then disowned it, and how Auden's posthumous reputation has had some unlikely boosters in Richard Curtis and Osama Bin Laden. 

The Book Club has taken a short summer break and will return in September. Until then, and ahead of the 85th anniversary of the start of World War Two, here's an episode from the archives with the author Ian Sansom.  Recorded ahead of the 80th anniversary in 2019, Sam Leith talks to Ian about September 1, 1939, the W.H. Auden poem that marked the beginning of the war. Ian's book is a 'biography' of the poem; they discuss how it showcases all that is best and worst in Auden's work, how Auden first rewrote and then disowned it, and how Auden's posthumous reputation has had some unlikely boosters in Richard Curtis and Osama Bin Laden. 

Esta es una muestra de "Abejas grises". La versión completa tiene una duración total de 11 h 3 min. Encuentra este audiolibro completo en https://bit.ly/abejasgrises_AudiolibroNarrado por: Eugenio BaronaEn Malaia Starogradovka, un pueblo de apenas tres calles en la zona gris de Ucrania, la tierra de nadie disputada en 2014 entre las fuerzas ucranianas y los separatistas prorrusos, solo quedan dos residentes: Serguéi Sergueich, inspector de seguridad retirado convertido en apicultor, y Pashka Jmelenko, amigo y rival suyo desde sus días de escuela. Sin electricidad, con poca comida y con la constante amenaza de los bombardeos, el único placer que le queda a Sergueich son sus abejas, adormiladas por el invierno. Con la llegada de la primavera, tendrá que alejarlas de la zona gris para que puedan recolectar su polen en paz, una misión que lo llevará a conocer a combatientes y civiles de ambos lados de la línea de batalla. Su bondad y su impecable brújula moral irán desarmando a todos los que se crucen en su camino, convirtiendo la salvación de sus abejas en una metáfora sobre la vida en tiempos de guerra. La crítica ha dicho...«Aunque se basa en la cruda realidad de la guerra, Abejas grises se lee por momentos como una fábula. [...] Se enfrenta a un conflicto de gran complejidad moral con delicadeza y cierta ambivalencia. Al leerlo, uno se siente transportado a un tiempo de una inocencia mayor».Keith Gessen, The New Yorker «Un libro cálido y sorprendentemente divertido del mejor novelista vivo de Ucrania».Charlie Connelly, New European «Un Bulgákov contemporáneo. [...] Un Murakami ucraniano».The Guardian «La mirada ingenua de Serguéi permite que Kurkov llegue al corazón de un país desconcertado por la crisis y la guerra, en el que todavía quedan trazos de bondad».Uilleam Blacker, The Times Literary Supplement «Recuerda a Beckett y Pinter, con destellos de Kafka».Strong Words («20 mejores libros del año») «Kurkov en estado puro, con su talento de narrador que sabe emocionar, sorprender y situarse a la altura del ser humano».La Croix «Una especie de Kurt Vonnegut ucraniano».Ian Sansom, Spectator «Un Kafka postsoviético».Daily Telegraph «Extraña y cautivadora. [...] Con una prosa sobria, el novelista más famoso de Ucrania examina sin piedad las confusiones inhumanas de nuestros tiempos y el anhelo del hombre común y afectuoso por hallar la racionalidad del mundo natural».John Thornhill, Financial Times Sobre El jardinero de Ochákov:«Divertida, nostálgica, soviética, postsoviética y honda. [...] Lo que alberga sobre todo es la potencia de una voz. Y diversión».Berna González Harbour, Babelia Sobre Muerte con pingüino:«Todo un clásico del humor negro y la novela criminal».J. C. Galindo, El País© 2022, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, S. A. U.#penguinaudio #audiolibro #audiolibros #Kurkov #AndreiKurkov Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we look at one of the most famous poems of the twentieth century as we consider Ian Sansom’s brilliantly entertaining book about the poem and the poet, September 1, 1939: W.H. Auden and the Afterlife of a Poem . We’ll also be looking at the latest novel by Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults. This week’s Toaster Challenge guest is Mary O’Donnell, whose poetry collection Massacre of the Birds has just been published by Salmon Books. The Toaster Challenge choice is On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean VuongIntro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it.Artwork by Freya SirrTo subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. If you want to be alerted when a new episode is released follow the instructions here for iPhone or iPad. For Spotify notifications follow the instructions here.

Featuring new work by Genevieve Stevens, Steven Blythe, Alanna Offield, Kevin O'Farrell, Grace Tower, Lorraine Carey, Tim Dwyer, Rebecca Farmer, Sinead Nolan, Iain Whiteley, Rachel Donati, Julia Wieting, Tom Day, Dide, Stephanie Green, and Erin Vance. With a personal note from Nick Laird.  The Seamus Heaney Poetry Summer School is an annual intensive week of study for emerging poets, hosted by the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's, and led by Professor Nick Laird.  The Seamus Heaney Centre Podcast is created in a small back room by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, and Rachel Brown. This episode was produced by Conor McCafferty. Thanks as always to our writers, and to Nick Boyle for his music.

With excerpts from: The Hobbyist by Will Reade The Farm by Aisling Daly Angels of Montmartre by Oisin Colligan A Commercial Break by Stephen Brown Left Them Crying by Daniel Paton A Day's Too Long by Anne Bodel The Beard by Hasan Shah The Last Policeman by Sionnán Ní Nualláin The Seamus Heaney Centre Podcast is created in a small back room (and during these times of quarantine, in a series of small back rooms) by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, and Rachel Brown. This episode was produced by Conor McCafferty. The actors throughout were Jo Dow and Anna Healey, recorded in their homes during the lockdown of spring 2020, with thanks to our lecturer in Creative Writing Michael West. Thanks as always to our writers, and to Nick Boyle for his music. Special thanks to the Queen's Annual Fund. 

The Seamus Heaney Centre Podcast is produced in a small back room by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, and Rachel Brown. With thanks to our producer Chantal Ailsby, and to Nick Boyle for his music. This is one of a series of masterclasses with novelists, poets, playwrights and screenwriters, designed to support a life of writing. Special thanks to the Queen's Annual Fund. Jed Mercurio is one of the few British screenwriters to work as a showrunner. His most recent productions, Bodyguard and Line of Duty, have broken audience records in the UK. His other credits include Lady Chatterley's Lover, Critical, Strike Back, Bodies, The Grimleys and Cardiac Arrest. He is a former hospital physician and Royal Air Force officer, having originally planned to specialise in aviation medicine. Line of Duty and Bodies are both winners of the Royal Television Society Award for Best Drama Series; Line of Duty won the 2018 Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Drama Series and Mercurio won Best Writer. The first four seasons of Line of Duty have so far been nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards. Mercurio is a four-time nominee as Best Drama Writer for both the Royal Television Society and Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

The Seamus Heaney Centre Podcast is produced in a small back room by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, and Rachel Brown. With thanks to our producer Chantal Ailsby, and to Nick Boyle for his music. This is one of a series of masterclasses with novelists, poets, playwrights and screenwriters, designed to support a life of writing. Special thanks to the Queen's Annual Fund.  Lucy Caldwell (b. 1981, Belfast) is the multi–award winning author of three novels, several stage plays and radio dramas and, most recently, two collections of short stories: Multitudes (Faber, 2016) and Intimacies (forthcoming, Faber, 2020). She is also the editor of Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (Faber, 2019). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.  Awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the George Devine Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Imison Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Irish Writers' and Screenwriters' Guild Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Award (Canada & Europe), the Edge Hill Short Story Prize Readers' Choice Award, a Fiction Uncovered Award, a K. Blundell Trust Award and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. 

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration. 5. Ian Sansom: Mince on Toast with Christopher Isherwood Ian Sansom reflects on the supreme sociability of Christopher Isherwood through the extreme unsociability of social isolation.

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five new diaries written during the unprecedented period of recent weeks, reflecting on the present moment and reaching out to another historical literary diarist for aid and inspiration. 4. Ian Sansom: Cheese Dreams with Graham Greene Ian Sansom explores his own and Graham Greene's active dream life.

On this bonus episode, Jenny reports on the first quarter of her TBR Explode project (now on its second year) and announces this year's Reading Envy Summer Reading Challenge! It's almost May, so it's almost summer, depending on how you define it. Please let me know what you are reading for your summer reading by using the hashtag #readingenvysummerreading - yes I left the challenge part out but it's long enough.Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 188: TBR Explode and SUMMER READING Subscribe to the podcast via this link: FeedburnerOr subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: SubscribeOr listen through TuneIn Or listen on Google Play Listen via StitcherListen through Spotify Books discussed: Kept on TBR but did not finish The Forgotten Garden by Kate MortonTalking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob SheffieldWent ahead and read The River Gods by Brian KiteleyThe Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando SkyhorseBeginner’s Greek by James CollinsA Brief History of Time by Shaindel BeersUnformed Landscape by Peter StammTried and abandoned The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. MoraisHeart of Lies by M.L. MalcolmMy Empire of Dirt by Manny HowardWonder by Hugo ClausThe Twin by Gerbrand BakkerKings of the Earth by Jon ClinchThe Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean GreerTwo Marriages by Phillip LopateWhat is Left the Daughter by Howard NormanThe Bible Salesman by Clyde EdgertonLush Life by Richard PriceIn the Kitchen by Monica AliThe Grift by Debra GinsbergMy Father’s Tears and Other Stories by John UpdikePygmy by Chuck PalahniukA Good Fall by Ha JinThe Case of the Missing Books by Ian SansomThe Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass The Cookbook Collector by Allegra GoodmanCheese Making by Rita AshThe Irresistible Henry House by Lisa GrunwaldCountry Driving by Peter HesslerThe Big Short by Michael LewisOther mentions:The Last Policeman series by Ben H. Winters (The Last Policeman is book 1)Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French (In the Woods is book 1)Tana French - Book Riot recommended order The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend is book 1)Related episodes:Episode 024 - The Attention of Humanity with guests Seth Wilson and Barret Newman Episode 149 - TBR Explode! (2019)Episode 158 - TBR Explode 2 (2019)Episode 168 - TBR Explode 3 (2019)Episode 169 - Simulacrum with Jon Sealy   Episode 174 - Cozy Holiday Reads and TBR Explode 4 (2019)Stalk us online:Jenny at GoodreadsJenny on TwitterJenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

Eighty years on from the start of the Second World War, Sam's guest in this week’s podcast is Ian Sansom — who’s talking about 'September 1, 1939', the Auden poem that marked the beginning of that war. Ian’s new book is a 'biography' of the poem, and he talks about how it showcases all that is both best and worst in Auden’s work, how Auden first rewrote and then disowned it, and how Auden’s posthumous reputation has had some unlikely boosters in Richard Curtis and Osama Bin Laden. Spectator Books is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes of Spectator Books here (https://audioboom.com/dashboard/4905582) .

Eighty years on from the start of the Second World War, Sam's guest in this week’s podcast is Ian Sansom — who’s talking about 'September 1, 1939', the Auden poem that marked the beginning of that war. Ian’s new book is a 'biography' of the poem, and he talks about how it showcases all that is both best and worst in Auden’s work, how Auden first rewrote and then disowned it, and how Auden’s posthumous reputation has had some unlikely boosters in Richard Curtis and Osama Bin Laden. Presented by Sam Leith.

In this light-headed summer solstice episode, Stephen Sexton gives some excellent advice on divining rods, Ian Sansom talks to Aislinn Clarke about the supernatural, and Marcella Prince reads some poems.  It was produced in a small back room by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, and Rachel Brown. With thanks to producers Chantal Ailsby and Toby James, and to Nick Boyle for his music. 

In this labourious bank holiday episode, our regular format takes a day off, giving Ian Sansom more time to talk to Myra Zepf about working with myths and children, and Dawn Watson reads some poems. It was recorded in a small back room by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, and Rachel Brown, with thanks to producers Chantal Ailsby and Toby James, and to Nick Boyle for his music. 

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

'Dear Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wilde, Do you mind if I just call you Oscar? It's just you always seemed so approachable yet ultimately unknowable...a bit like the Queen.' Continuing his series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom finds he's in the gutter, looking at the stars again. As his dispatches to some of the world's great writers resume, Ian is increasingly shocked by their unexpectedly frank and direct answers... 'Dear Dante, Did you really meant all that stuff about people being thrown into boiling pitch and tar..?' In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything we wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Why did Mary Shelley start so young? How did William Trevor keep going for so long? And what exactly is the significance of Marianne Moore's tricorn hat? Producer: Conor Garrett

In this serpentine episode, Ian Sansom doesn't talk about snakes with Manuela Moser, Gail McConnell, and Jimmy McAleavey. As far as we can tell, Padraig Regan's poems do not contain snakes.  It was produced in a small back room by Ian Sansom, Stephen Sexton, Rachel Brown, and Chantal Ailsby, with original music and sounds by Nick Boyle and Chantal Ailsby. 

Phil Baker guides us through the morbid, wistful and yet immensely charming world of the writer and illustrator Edward Gorey; Frances Wilson weighs the pleasures and pains of letter and email writing; Ian Sansom on the struggle to be funnyBooksBorn To Be Posthumous: The eccentric life and mysterious genius of Edward Gorey, by Mark DeryWhat a Hazard a Letter Is: The strange destiny of the unsent letter, by Caroline AtkinsWritten In History: Letters that changed the world, by Simon Sebag MontefioreIn Their Own Words: Volume 2: More letters from historyWit's End: What wit is, how it works, and why we need it, by James GearyMessing About In Quotes: A little Oxford dictionary of humorous quotations, compiled by Gyles Brandreth See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this amatory episode Ian Sansom talks love songs with Glenn Patterson, Shakespeare's Sonnets with Leontia Flynn, and black masses with Tim Loane. Caitlin Newby reads some love poems, and Ciaran Carson sings a song for a blue-eyed lassie.  Produced in a back room by Stephen Sexton, Ian Sansom, Rachel Brown, and Conor McCafferty. With music by Nicholas Boyle. 

'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything. 'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?' As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932? In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists. Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland

'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything. 'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?' As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowdfunding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932? In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists. Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland

'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything. 'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?' As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932? In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists. Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland

'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything. 'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?' As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932? In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists. Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland

'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything. 'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?' As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932? In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists. Producer - Mark McCleary for BBC Northern Ireland

According to Charles W. Eliot - President of Harvard and cousin of T.S. - everything required for a complete, liberal education could fit on a shelf of books just 5-feet in length. In 1909 the first volume of the Harvard Classics were published - and grew to become a 51-volume anthology of great works, including essays, poems and political treatises. But what if people today from all walks of life were asked to recommend books to be included on a five foot shelf? Which books do they think might be required for a complete home education? Ian Sansom has set a course for Wigtown - Scotland's National Booktown - to find out. Local craftsman Steve has been busy creating just the shelf for the job - exactly five foot long - and fashioned from elm wood and whiskey barrels recycled from a local distillery. Ian will be playing shopkeeper at the Open Book in Wigtown - a B&B meets bookshop which allows visitors to indulge their fantasy of running their own bookstore. With Ian parked behind the counter, all that's needed is for visitors to drop by and try to persuade him of the books they think deserve a rightful place on The Five Foot Shelf. But of course not everything will make it on and as custodian of the shelf, Ian can be ruthless. Well, kind of... No academics. No critics. No nonsense. The Five Foot Shelf is a guide for readers by readers about the books which matter to them. Producer: Conor Garrett.

A letter of apology to Virginia Woolf from novelist, Ian Sansom.

Ian Sansom writes to Irish novelist and playwright, William Trevor

Ian Sansom drops a quick line to Dante

Ian Sansom writes to Frankenstein author, Mary Shelley, to ask her how on earth she coped

Ian Sansom is in the gutter looking at the stars as he writes to Oscar Wilde

Ian Sansom writes to poet Marianne Moore and asks her about that tricorn hat

Ian Sansom attempts to resurrect the spirit of poet Vladimir Mayakovsky

With more than 30 million presentations being given around the world every day, PowerPoint has become the single most ubiquitous tool for presenting ideas. Yet it's the software many of us love to hate - vilified for simplifying the complex and complicating the simple. 30 years on from its commercial launch, Ian Sansom asks, 'What's the real point of PowerPoint?' as he embarks on what surely must be a world first - a PowerPoint presentation for the radio. How do I move this on to the next slide? There we are. Thanks. Armed only with an auto-content wizard, some zippy graphics and a hefty set of bullet points, Ian ventures forth to assess the true impact of this revolution in communication. He speaks with the software's pioneers, meets some of its notable detractors and asks how PowerPoint has influenced corporate life and spilled out into some improbable areas of our culture. As he discovers how science-fiction is helping to inform the next generation of presentation technology, Ian asks if PowerPoint has empowered the individual - or if our boardrooms, lecture halls and even our spiritual affairs are to be forever condemned to the fate that has come to be known as 'Death By PowerPoint.' What do I do now? Press escape? No, I want to bring it back to the start. F6 I think. Where's the remote thingy..? Producer: Conor Garrett.

999 was the first emergency telephone number in the world when it was launched on June 30th, 1937. Within the first week, more than a thousand calls were made to the service with one burglar arrested less than five minutes after a member of the public had dialled 999. Impressive stuff. But there were teething problems... In the early days, only those wealthy enough to own a telephone could hope to avail of the service. Exchange room operators complained of stress caused by the raucous buzzers which alerted them to 999 calls. Advancing technology connected with the system began to alter the relationship between public and police. Almost unbelievably in hindsight, the 999 service wasn't made fully available across the nation until 1976. Exactly 80 years after it was introduced, Ian Sansom dials up the remarkable story of our three digit emergency number. Between rare archive, real life-or-death emergencies and interviews with call handlers on the front line, Ian takes a personal look at the evolution of 999 and asks what the future holds for this pioneering British institution. Producer: Conor Garrett.

Leprechauns, sprites, imps and elves - Ian Sansom is searching for the diminutive other.

Writer and broadcaster Ian Sansom explores Belfast's burgeoning poetry scene and asks why the city boasts so many poets.

'Dear Geoffrey Chaucer, Can I call you Geoff..?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, novelist Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of literary history's most celebrated figures and interrogating them about their art.'Oh Agatha Christie, Please - do tell - what is the secret of your success?'As his correspondence unfolds, queries are raised and jealousies revealed.'Dear Virginia Woolf, Please accept my apologies. For a long time I thought you represented everything that's wrong with literature...'How exactly does George Eliot do it? And why does she keep ignoring Ian's letters?'Dear George Eliot, You are simply so far out of my league as a correspondent that it is embarrassing even to put pen to paper and to address you directly.In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything you wanted to know about some of our best-loved writers but just were too afraid to ask.Producer: Conor Garrett.

'Dear Geoffrey Chaucer, Can I call you Geoff..?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, novelist Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of literary history's most celebrated figures and interrogating them about their art.'Oh Agatha Christie, Please - do tell - what is the secret of your success?'As his correspondence unfolds, queries are raised and jealousies revealed.'Dear Virginia Woolf, Please accept my apologies. For a long time I thought you represented everything that's wrong with literature...'How exactly does George Eliot do it? And why does she keep ignoring Ian's letters?'Dear George Eliot, You are simply so far out of my league as a correspondent that it is embarrassing even to put pen to paper and to address you directly.In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything you wanted to know about some of our best-loved writers but just were too afraid to ask.Producer: Conor Garrett.

'Dear Geoffrey Chaucer, Can I call you Geoff..?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, novelist Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of literary history's most celebrated figures and interrogating them about their art.'Oh Agatha Christie, Please - do tell - what is the secret of your success?'As his correspondence unfolds, queries are raised and jealousies revealed.'Dear Virginia Woolf, Please accept my apologies. For a long time I thought you represented everything that's wrong with literature...'How exactly does George Eliot do it? And why does she keep ignoring Ian's letters?'Dear George Eliot, You are simply so far out of my league as a correspondent that it is embarrassing even to put pen to paper and to address you directly.In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything you wanted to know about some of our best-loved writers but just were too afraid to ask.Producer: Conor Garrett.

'Dear Geoffrey Chaucer, Can I call you Geoff..?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, novelist Ian Sansom writes letters to five of literary history's most celebrated figures and interrogates them about their art.'Oh Agatha Christie, Please - do tell - what is the secret of your success?'As his correspondence unfolds, queries are raised, jealousies revealed, concerns aired. 'Dear Virginia Woolf, Please accept my apologies. For a long time I thought you represented everything that's wrong with literature...'How exactly does George Eliot do it? Why is it so difficult? And what's that Jonathan Swift just called him? Producer: Conor Garrett.

'Dear Geoffrey Chaucer, Can I call you Geoff..?' In a series of imaginary correspondences, novelist Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of literary history's most celebrated figures and interrogating them about their art.'Oh Agatha Christie, Please - do tell - what is the secret of your success?'As his correspondence unfolds, queries are raised and jealousies revealed.'Dear Virginia Woolf, Please accept my apologies. For a long time I thought you represented everything that's wrong with literature...'How exactly does George Eliot do it? And why does she keep ignoring Ian's letters?'Dear George Eliot, You are simply so far out of my league as a correspondent that it is embarrassing even to put pen to paper and to address you directly.In his on-going epistolary quest, Ian attempts to find out everything you wanted to know about some of our best-loved writers but just were too afraid to ask.Producer: Conor Garrett.

Daybreak... and five writers set off on foot - and report back: This time, the novelist Ian Sansom starts out, using as inspiration ideas of Benjamin Franklin and his faith in 'powerful goodness'. Powerful goodness will power him along, towards the sea at the edge of his town.Producer: Duncan Minshull

Novelist and critic Ian Sansom believes that the idea of the average is one of the key terms and principles of the modern age, encompassing human productivity, relationships, politics and art. So, how did average become a byword for mediocrity?In the final essay of the series, he attempts to locate the most average place in the UK, the heart of Middle England, the spiritual home of Joe and Josephine Public. Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Novelist and critic Ian Sansom goes in search of the 'average' man or woman.

Novelist and critic Ian Sansom believes that the idea of the average is one of the key terms and principles of the modern age, encompassing human productivity, relationships, politics and art. So, how did average become a byword for mediocrity? In the third essay of the series, he explores the changing concept of the average working week in an age of zero hours contracts. Is the idea of an average working week now as redundant and old-fashioned as the idea of the tea-drinking, bowler-hatted man on the Clapham omnibus, with his 2.4 children living comfortably in suburbia, in a nation of cheeky-chappie shopkeepers?Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Novelist and critic Ian Sansom believes that the idea of the average is one of the key terms and principles of the modern age, encompassing human productivity, relationships, politics and art. So, how did average become a byword for mediocrity? In the second essay of the series, he uncovers the unlikely history of the scientific measurement of the dimensions of the average man and woman. We learn that our ever-changing dimensions matter - size matters - for all sorts of obvious reasons, not least because average sizes literally determine the shape of the world we all live in: the height of our tables and chairs, the shape of our clothes, our cars, our phones - and of course our coffins. We all live and die according to the average.Producer: Stan Ferguson.

Novelist and critic Ian Sansom believes that the idea of the average is one of the key terms and principles of the modern age, encompassing human productivity, relationships, politics and art. So, how did average become a byword for mediocrity? 'Average Is Over' proclaims the title of one recent best-selling book about economics. 'Start: Punch Fear In the Face, Escape Average And Do Work That Matters' suggests the title of another. 'Conquering Average'. 'Mastering Average'. 'Overcoming Average'. This has become the mantra of our times. In the opening essay of this series of investigations into the average, Sansom takes a sideways look at the history and meaning of the ordinary and the everyday and discovers what it means to be the opposite of 'awesome'. Producer: Stan Ferguson.

The novelist and academic Ian Sansom explores the literary, philosophical and cultural history of the table. From dining to designing, drinking and disagreeing; the table is central to our lives; "the departure point and launching pad for a thousand hare-brained schemes and ideas, a drawing board, a battlefield, and also the philosopher's favourite tool". Ian has raised a family round his kitchen table, but his true table as a writer is a solitary one. Bertrand Russell used the table as a symbol to explore the uncertain nature of observed reality; Wordsworth urged readers to rise up from their wooden desk, while Karl Marx used tables to explore the notion of commodities in Das Kapital, but is the table Ian built for O-level woodwork the truest thing he has ever made?'.

We discovered royalty-free music. Ambitions grew. Podcasts were made. On this episode we chat to Judith Claire Mitchell, author of the beautiful 'A Reunion of Ghosts' - think 'Middlesex' meets Sylvia Plath filmed by Wes Andersen - and Ian Sansom, loveliest man alive and author of The County Guides - a rollicking crime-thriller-comedy-mystery series set in the 1930s. The best Christmas telly the BBC have never made. We talk suicide notes, literary epics and spoiler specials - oh, and there's a recipe too. Which sounds odd, because you don't have the awesomeness of an accompanying photo, but is very useful if you're listening to this in Sainsburys. Plus an exclusive extract from the audiobook of 'Death in Devon'... I promise you'll never hear me say funky again.

It's one of the strangest, most complex and frustrating works in Middle English, so when writer Ian Sansom is tasked with coming up with a radio adaptation of William Langland's medieval dream poem 'Piers the Plowman', it presents a bit of a challenge. His producer's solution? To lock Ian away in a Curfew Tower in the Glens of Antrim and challenge him to come up with his adaptation over the course of a weekend, after which time he'll be expected to put on a performance. The 14th century poem - part theological allegory, part social satire - may have eluded scholars for centuries but Ian has help at hand. Aside from three poetry students from Queen's University, renowned medievalist Dr Stephen Kelly will be there to guide him on his quest for salvation. As Ian grapples with the text written in alliterative long lines and framed in a series of dream visions, adaptation expert Brian Sibley will be just a phone call away. Then there's the members of Belfast outfit The Wireless Mystery Theatre who'll be dropping by to bring music and their own distinctive style to Ian's performance. Who knows, it could turn out to be a dream...or it could be a nightmare. Producer: Conor Garrett Sound Design: Jason Martin.

dNovelist and academic Ian Sansom explores the symbolism of beds in literature, art and film, and asks what beds reveal about human nature. 'Beds are where we are most physical, most elemental, and where we experience the great highs and lows of life. Everything significant that happens to us tends to take place in bed'. Certainly many of history's greatest thinkers and writers are thought to have been inspired in bed; G.K. Chesterton wished he had a pencil long enough to write on the ceiling while lying down, Milton is said to have written Paradise Lost in bed, and Truman Capote started his day in bed with coffee, mint tea, sherry and martinis. Ian thinks the bed is where we are most ourselves 'the place where you cannot hide', and perhaps we try to avoid spending too much time there because we fear what it signifies - 'the never-ending lie-in to come'.

Are you sitting comfortably? Despite his bad posture, novelist and academic Ian Sansom explores our complex physical, mental and emotional relationship with the chair. Chairs can symbolise who we are, like Ian's comfy old overstuffed armchair, and in 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', the little bear asks 'Who's been sitting in my chair?' which Ian reads as "Who am I?" Van Gogh painted two empty chairs after his famous fall-out with Gauguin; Henry Thoreau, out in his cabin at Walden Pond, had just three chairs 'one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society'. Ian has 26 chairs in total, but not a 'named chair', which is the 'scholar's burnished throne'. Apart from beds, we share more intimacy with chairs than with any other piece of furniture, but often their symbolism is most powerful when empty, because Ian believes that empty chairs always imply people.

Novelist and academic Ian Sansom steps into the history of wardrobes, to discover not only how and why we store clothes in large upright wooden boxes, but also why wardrobes feature so largely in fairy tales, memoirs and stories. From E. Nesbit's 'The Aunt and Anabel' to C.S Lewis's 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe', via Guy De Maupassant's tragic tale of a child in a wardrobe, Rimbaud's poem about a wardrobe with missing keys, and Roman Polanski's short film about two men who carry a wardrobe out of the sea; Ian explores the symbolism of wardrobes as a place where secrets are stored, imaginations inspired, consciences hidden, and our 'selves' reinvented.